Prototyping
This week, 3Dream worked very efficiently and we made allot of progress with our final project (Vertical hydroponic drip system). There were multiple complications with 3D printing the voronoi bottle cages and it failed 3 times. At last, with some tweaks on Cura and removing all the supports and only including a brim, the four bottle cages turned out beautifully! Initially, I was worried that the bottle cages would fail without supports but it turns out that they were completely unnecessary. The four drip nozzles were also successful when printing.
Another milestone was better understanding and getting the sensors to work while attaching them to the bucket which will serve as the reservoir. My Teammate learned how to use an electric drill & caulking gun while building it.
Now that we have tangible prototypes and received feedback, 3Dream has been able to develop a new sketch of what we imagine our final project to be.
Feedback
In class, we met with two other groups and both sides presented their project and we shared options/suggestions. Further, we were expected to conduct an interview to gain additional information on how to better our project. Our group interviewed 3 separate people and plan on coming to together to share what we have learned and also to present our individual possible alterations of the prototype. I interviewed a post-graduate computer science male. Age 25, lives in a studio apartment, and is familiar with a hydroponic system but has never owned/maintained a plant before. The main takeaways that I gathered was that the bucket was not visually appealing and should definitely be remodeled. Users who do not have any experience in caring for a plant are highly interested in our project and would own one if we made it more visually appealing and included a pH sensor.
Overall, after getting feedback from numerous sources, I deeply understand the importance of getting user feedback in all trials of development. I hope to hear more thoughts on our project in the comments below! Thanks for taking the time to check out my blog, see you next week!
Hey Cristal,
Looks like your group is off to a fast start. The initial designs and prints look very promising and I’m excited to see the final product. I look forward to meeting with you and 3Dream to discuss your project.
Jason
Wow. You guys are total rockstars. I cannot wait to see what this looks like after you’ve added actual topsoil and plants. Do you know yet if the plastic you used works well with organic compounds and components?
I really like the aesthetics of your holders – the organic, repetitive design shapes are very appealing to the eyes. Looking forward to seeing your final presentation in action!
Ajie
Hi Cristal,
It’s good to see that your team is getting a lot of work done and after looking at what you have so far and that updated sketch, I am very interested to see how it turns out. When I was going through my prototype tests, I was also told that certain parts of it were visually unappealing but that is just part of creating a prototype. It’s better to make sure it works before making sure it looks nice.